A DYING general—Sir Ralph Abercromby—was being carried in a litter to the boat of the Foudroyant, in which he died. He was in great pain from his wound, and could get no place in which to rest. Sir John Macdonald (afterward adjutant-general) put something under his head. Sir Ralph smiled and said, “That is a comfort; that is the very thing. What is it, John?” “It is only a soldier’s blanket, Sir Ralph.” “Only a soldier’s blanket, sir!” said the old man, fixing his eye severely on him. “Whose blanket is it?” “One of the men’s.” “I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is,” and everything paused till he was satisfied. “It is Duncan Roy’s of the 42nd, Sir Ralph.” “Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night”— and, wearied and content, the soldier’s friend was moved to his deathbed.
Another story: ―
A woman—wife of Sir Robert Christison, a physician of European reputation—was in her last long illness. She was going to the country for a month, and her husband heard her give orders that a piece of worsted work which she had finished should be grounded and made up as an ottoman, ready for her return. A few days before she was expected back, he asked if it was completed; it had been totally forgotten. He said nothing; but getting possession of the piece, he sat up for two or three nights and worked in the ground with his own hand, had it made up, and set his wife down on it, as she had wished. Was it a small act? Perhaps. But how revealing of the manly tenderness within!
Yet one more story: — “When cholera first came here in 1832,” wrote Dr. John Brown, “I was in England at Chatham, which you all know is a great place for ships and sailors. This fell disease comes on generally in the night; as the Bible says, it walks, in darkness, and many a morning was I roused at two o’clock to go and see its sudden victims. One morning a sailor came to say I must go three miles down the river to a village where it had broken out with great fury. Off I set. The men rowed in silence with all their might down dark river: they had too many dying or dead at home to have the heart to speak to me. It was very dark, but I saw a crowd of men and women at the landing-place. They were all shouting for the doctor; the shrill cries of the women, and the deep voices of the men coming across the water to me. We were near the shore, when I saw a big old man, his hat off, his hair gray, his head bald; he said nothing, but turning them all off with his arm, he plunged into the waters, and before I knew where I was, had me in his arms. I was helpless as an infant. He waded out, carrying me high up in his left arm, and with his right levelling every man or woman who stood in his way. It was Big Joe carrying me to see his grandson little Joe, and he bore me off to the convulsed boy, and dared me to leave him till he was better. He did get better. But Big Joe was dead that night. He had the disease on him when he carried me away from the boat, but his heart was set upon his boy.”
A father’s great love urged Big Joe to ignore the fatal disease in his own body until he had brought succor to his little grandson. Love, surely, moved Sir Ralph Abercromby, the general, and Sir Robert Christison, the husband, and gave strength to the brave girl Alice, who (lost lately, with her sisters on an Alpine mountain-side), felt her foot slip, and pushed to safety the little seven-year-old sister Simone, whom she had been carrying, ere she herself hurtled clown a 2,500 feet precipice to death.
Very early in our childhood we learn the short text, “GOD IS LOVE.” In Victorian clays, little fingers laboriously worked it in silk on perforated card, to be backed with broad riband and given as a bookmark to parent or friend; and framed wall-illuminations have displayed it above countless beds in quiet bed-chambers. Yet who has fully grasped its meaning? The mere effort to do so brings us sharply up against our own utter inability to fathom the unfathomable—to find out by searching that God Who is Love. But there is a clue put into our hands by the Son of God—Himself in His incarnation and atoning death and resurrection the supreme proof of God’s love for sinners—whereby the Love which passeth knowledge, though it be hid from the wise and prudent, may yet be revealed unto babes. “If ye, ‘BEING EVIL,” said Christ, “know how to give good gifts unto your children, HOW MUCH MORE shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” (Matt. 7:1111If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matthew 7:11).) “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?” (Psa. 94:99He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? (Psalm 94:9).) He Who in His Word has used every dear-earthly relationship as type and picture of what He is to His Own—Who planted the love in father, mother, brother, sister, lover, husband, leader, friend—shall He—all-perfect—not far exceed us who are evil? “Go to my brethren,” said the risen Saviour, “and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” (John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17).)
H.R.